Convicting Navalny was the Kremlin’s way of stopping him from
taking part in any national elections. The Supreme Court’s decision
has opened the - until now unthinkable - prospect of [Russian
President] Vladimir Putin’s main political foe running for
president in 2018.

The news was, unsurprisingly, met with suspicion in opposition
circles.

Back in 2013, Navalny was charged with stealing timber from a
state-owned corporation in the provincial city of Kirov [see Current Digest,
Vol. 65, No. 29, pp. 5 - 9]. The trial was largely condemned as
politically motivated: it came just two months after [sic; before -
Trans.] the Moscow mayoral election, in which Navalny won
30% of the vote against a Kremlin loyalist.

As part of another case a year later, Navalny and his brother
Oleg were convicted of embezzling 30 million rubles ($460,000).
Navalny was given a suspended sentence, but his brother was sent to
three and a half years in prison [see Current
Digest, Vol. 67, No. 1 - 3, pp. 10 - 12]. Human rights
organizations again condemned the sentence as a Soviet-style tactic
to silence dissent by holding relatives hostage. This second
conviction did not, however, legally stop Navalny from running for
office. It was the earlier Kirov conviction that blocked him from
registering as a candidate.

While dramatic arrests would indicate a continuation of
authoritarian rule, there have been some indications that the
Kremlin might be considering loosening its grip on some aspects of
political life. The appointment of a new head of domestic policy,
Sergei Kiriyenko, with his reputation as a progressive
Western-minded liberal, was ...

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